St Genevieve

I had mentioned a few weeks back of my plan to start a new saint print to use as the cutting demonstration piece for an upcoming artist presentation.  That presentation is now about 48 hours away, so getting the block ready is a priority.  Last week I cut a piece of wood to the proper size and prepared the surface.  I spent a bit of time over the last week considering some of the possibilities I had noted going through my old notes, even doing a little research and thinking about specific images.  In the end I decided to go with a different idea.

My brother and his wife recently had a baby girl, who they named Genevieve.  Yesterday was the baptism.  For pretty much any traditional European given name there is a corresponding saint, so I went  to my copy of Butler's and sure enough found one.  French, 5th century, when only 7 she was picked out of a crowd by a bishop (who would later become a saint himself) who believed she was destined for a life in the church.  She agreed, accepting a special blessing at that point, and later taking vows at age 15.  From then on it was a difficult life, blessed with many people opposing her religious mission, hurling insults at her, and threatening death.  Her friend the bishop had to intervene a few times on her behalf until her reputation was properly established.  Over the years she was able to convince political enemies to let her help the people, and once, with the help of a prayer marathon, diverted the path of Atilla the Hun and his armies away from her local village.

That last story particularly appealed to my brother the history teacher, but it doesn't really fit in with the Everyman concept of the series.  Instead I went with a childhood story.  The book reports that young Genevieve was struck on the face by her mother (she had been begging to be taken to church), and the mother was punished by instantly going blind.  Genevieve eventually restored her sight by washing her eyes with water from the local well, which she had blessed.  The classic walled in well with bucket and crank aren't too common anymore around here, but everyone knows what it is and has seen one as some point, so it seemed the way to go.  I went up to the Studio for a little while today to do some drawing.  The feast day is Jan 3, and I though that I might find enough previous saint blocks there to have the letters and numbers to copy from, but all I could find was the 3.   I put in the name in the usual spot and started sketching in a classic well in various sizes and places, before settling for what you see above.  At home in the evening I worked on it more, adding a few details and improving the perspective, which you'll see next time I photograph it.